I would be grossly remiss if I failed to steer everyone to the drama unfolding in Mark Trail, my favorite newspaper cartoon.

Here's a quick summary of what has happened to date:

A little girl and her mother came across a baby deer in Lost Forest, which they of course picked up and carried home, because they couldn't see its nearby mother. The woman called neighbor Mark Trail, who told them this was a bad idea, but not nearly emphatically enough, because they kept the baby deer.

The little girl's stepfather, whom she actually calls Stepfather just to make sure we're not confused about the tenuous relationship, showed up and ushered Mark into his Big Game Room. Mark asked him why he threw a big fence around his property. Stepfather said it was none of his business, but we later learned that this guy is running for governor and is trying to curry support by importing and fencing half-tame game animals and hosting fatcats who will shoot them for trophies.

It's not clear to me why this would help him be elected, except that maybe these guys will contribute to his campaign in gratitude for their dead animal heads.

His wife, to her credit, not only told him this was a bad idea, but ratted him out to Mark, leading to a confrontation. Now Mark is staking out the property with his camera in hopes of publicizing this nefarious behavior, the future governor is raising toasts with his deep-pockets pals on the eve of their big hunt, and the ranch foreman is expressing concerns about the scheme, as you see above.

So here's my question, knowing there are other experienced Mark Trail devotees out there:

Someone sent me a link a while back to an excellent breakdown of rules that, if followed, would make people much better at talking and writing properly.

It’s “How to Sound Smarter” from Reader’s Digest, and I have to say that almost every one of these resonated with me. You can follow the link to read the whole thing, but I’ll offer a couple of their examples, repeating the format that Reader’s Digest used. Someone just complained to me the other day about this first one, which I hear everywhere:

You may have noticed that Associated Press style is to use tea party lowercase rather than capitalized as political parties generally are.

That’s because it’s not really a political party. It’s a loosely organized movement that the Republican Party has assumed all along it eventually would absorb. To some extent, that’s already happening, although not nearly as smoothly as some GOP leaders would like. It’s hard to imagine more than a handful of tea party activists voting for Democrats, whatever the claims of nonpartisanship.

If you want a real party that provides an independent alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans, you need to look elsewhere. So I figured I would share what the Libertarian Party had to say about the Republicans’ “Pledge to America.”

For the record, I’m a registered Republican at the moment, but I routinely change my registration for strategic purposes, depending on which primary election offers the most interesting races. I happen to agree with the Libertarians about the War on Drugs, which would be one of my first targets if I were looking to reduce spending, and on some but by no means all other issues. I think they're all wet in some areas.

I predict the tea party will be gone, or at least a shadow of what it is now, by the time the 2012 presidential election rolls around. But the Libertarians are here to stay, independent of the two-party system, which is how they like it. They say there are 37,310 registered Libertarians in Pennsylvania.

Here's their website, if you’d like to read their platform and other details. Meanwhile, here’s how they reacted to the Republicans. Understand that although the GOP is the target here, they have been at least as critical of the Democrats.

I’m already on record as feeling they should have returned Kevin Kolb to the starting lineup for the Eagles last Sunday. Given the team’s alleged commitment to him as its quarterback of the future, benching Kolb after less than a half of play seemed incredibly unfair.

Nonetheless, in the wake of another spectacular performance by Michael Vick, I’m coming around to the idea that — unfair as it is — this is quickly becoming Vick’s team, and the Eagles might as well ride him as far as they can.

Let’s face it, if he keeps playing the way he has been playing, admittedly against mostly inferior competition so far, Vick will be Pro Bowling come February. The old Vick was a great runner but an erratic passer and decision-maker. This guy is a great runner who also is throwing accurately and making smart decisions.

With all those dangerous weapons, he’s reminding me more of Hall of Famer Steve Young than the young Vick. I wouldn’t be surprised now if the Eagles sign him long-term and trade Kolb in the offseason.

One thing that started annoying me pretty quickly Sunday was the attention the Fox cameras paid to Kolb whenever Vick did anything good. Kolb reacted appropriately, luckily, but I would hate to think that the snubbed QB reaction shot will become as ubiquitous this season as, say, the Penn State dumb penalty Joe Paterno pained reaction shot. Give the young guy a break.

Anyway, the point of this post is to address the critics who still say Vick shouldn’t be playing because of the way he abused dogs. That view is getting more attention again now that he’s becoming the face of the Eagles instead of just a sideshow.

It has one difficult theme involving a British actor and three of his movies. It has three less difficult themes involving three other actors. It even has a random soft toss to fellow blogger Bernie O’Hare, who has complained that he never knows any of these answers.

Before you embark on this quest, PLEASE READ THESE RULES.

Good, I have your attention. Don’t look the quotes up. Any moron can do that. I want you to feel good about yourself when you supply a correct answer.

Second, don’t try to impress us by answering 10 or so in one fell swoop. We won’t be impressed, we’ll be disgusted with your selfishness, and as long I’m lurking in the area, I’ll delete your answer. Pick a couple and then give other people a chance, at least until a day or so has passed. By then, we’ll be happy for your help.

One last thing. If you haven’t seen today’s Morning Call article about teacher/principal/Lehigh County commissioner Jack McHugh, who died this week, go here to read it. It’s by my former colleague Glenn Kranzley, who was one of McHugh’s ex-students, and Kranzley did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the man and the impact he had on Kranzley's life.

Don’t hate me, but I was out most of the day playing golf in an IronPig outing, then eating a lavish lunch.

The team thanked its suiteholders and other sponsors, including The Morning Call, with an outing at the Center Valley Club. I was asked to play because no one else could make it.

I would give you a shot by shot replay, but I stunk, so I’ll just thank my playing partners for lugging me around on their backs for 18 holes. Since I was coming in to work, I couldn’t even join them drinking beer, which probably would have improved my game.

Anyway, it’s late, and I’m sitting here at work in my golf togs, smelling kind of unpleasant, so I’ll take the easy way out and just share with you my favorite reaction so far to my column this morning about the tea party, its political ramifications for both parties and what it says about our country’s mood.

This message came under the subject line “Kudos,” which was sufficiently atypical of the other reaction I received to make me feel gratified that somebody liked what I had to say. Then I opened it and read:

“Bill, you are without a doubt one of the finest journalist’s ever produced by north korean state run media. Well done!”

I choose not to engage people in the online comments on our stories. It's so ugly in there sometimes that it would feel like wrestling someone in an outhouse.

But interspersed with the usual "Morning Call sucks" diatribes were a couple of my fellow bloggers who did offer thoughtful comments on Tuesday’s column, and I thought these friendly confines would be a better place to react to that.

Mike Molovinsky wrote, "Bill, my main problem with this column is that you're ignoring the call's skeleton staff. simply put, the call has a fraction of it's former reporters, and only writes a fraction of the news. not so many years ago the B section was all local news, that's been reduced to two pages in the front section. currently the call has as many columnists as reporters, and imports even more generic columns from other tribune sources in lieu of local news. you wrote this article sans the current call reality, as if it were 2003. in 2010 many stories are blogger driven."

I had to go back and re-read my column in light of this and some much stronger reactions. Was this really an attack on bloggers? Custer’s Last Stand for the newspaper business? I had no idea.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to see that my old friend Larry Otter was taking another campaign sign ordinance to court. The Bucks County lawyer has been doing this kind of thing for years, most memorably here by helping Northampton County Democratic Chairman Joe Long strong-arm 18 county communities into agreeing to drop their restrictions on yard signs.

Otter, who has argued that freedom of speech is impaired if you can't put your signs up wherever you want for as long as you want, has been involved in similar suits around the state.

I don’t agree with him, but his efforts have been successful. Now he and state Senate candidate Rick Orloski have filed a federal suit against South Whitehall Township, claiming its political sign ordinance violates the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

Among other things, the township's ordinance requires a permit to put up political signs, and it limits their size, placement and duration.

I was listening to Mike and Mike in the Morning today on ESPN radio, and Mike Greenberg was noting how uneffusive Eagles Coach Andy Reid’s praise of Michael Vick was after Sunday’s game.

Greenberg felt Reid’s low-key comments were striking and somehow calculated to defend his decision to start Kevin Kolb, not Vick, against Jacksonville next week.

I was walking my dog, so I had no access to a keyboard. If I had, I certainly would have e-mailed him that Andy Reid isn’t effusive about anything, so it’s idiotic to read anything into his measured comments about Vick’s performance.

Everyone knows Vick has been terrific in the face of ferocious pass rushes and a very leaky offensive line. The guy almost carried them back to a victory last week and did a great job again Sunday.

This has put the franchise in a truly bizarre situation. By trading Donovan McNabb to clear the way for quarterback-of-the-future Kevin Kolb — a move most knowledgeable Eagles fans supported — they prepared everyone for a season in which Kolb could grow into the Super Bowl quality quarterback the team thinks he is, while the team finished somewhere around .500.

Most of us thought that would be acceptable if we saw a payoff down the line. This is a very young team.

Leave it to Reid, who always has been way too cute for his own good, to screw it up.

Not to be immodest, but I think I have an interesting list for you today. At the least, it should trigger some memories about these movies and other ones I might have included.

I have attempted to list the 15 best Disney movies that weren’t animated. Actually, I cheated a little bit in that a couple of movies on the list include some animation, but they’re largely live action.

One of the hardest parts was figuring out what exactly constitutes a Disney movie, what with some of their branches and their distribution of other people’s movies. If you look here, you can find Disney's own A-Z listing.

Where there was a series, I listed what I thought was the best of them. If there were remakes, I’ll tell you which one I liked better.

Feel free to add more choices or quibble with mine, notwithstanding the fact that you'll be wrong.

I got caught up writing a column about the wonderful Easton Area School Board -- I love people who make my life easy for me -- so I'm late getting around to the blog.

Earlier today, I e-mailed a group of fellow baseball lovers, offering the following opinion in the wake of the big fuss over Derek Jeter's alleged cheating. In case you missed it, an inside pitch hit Jeter's bat in Wednesday night's game, the umpire thought it hit Jeter on the hand and he played along with a stellar acting job, getting to first base as a result. (I was going to embed the video, but I had problems, so here's a link). Now some people think he has tarnished his image by "cheating."

That's balderdash, of course. Trickery is a big part of baseball. Players are forever pretending they caught balls that they really trapped, making baserunners think there's a throw coming when there isn't, framing outside pitches to make them look like strikes and so forth. If the call is blown, it's on the umpire, not the player. Baseball isn't like golf, where you have to police yourselves. That's what umps are for.

But the larger question, raised by this and other outrageously blown calls this season and the improvement of replay technology, is: If we have technology to get some of these high-profile calls right, shouldn't we use it?

So here was my comment to this group of friends.

"Another example of why we need instant replay. How about giving each manager one challenge per game?"

I occasionally get to suggest a Sounding Board question for our Town Square/editorial page. These are e-mailed to a panel of potential respondents, and the answers are published every Thursday.

Here’s the one I’m going to propose for next week:

“Tea party candidates this primary season have had surprising success at defeating established Republican candidates. Do you think this remarkable electoral uprising is an encouraging or discouraging development, not just in terms of how it affects your chosen party, if any, but also in terms of what it says about our democracy?”

One of my friends has maintained a file over the years of amazing quotes.

It’s highly classified, since most of these people have no idea their comments were recorded for prosperity, as some of these individuals might say. The list includes classic comments from such quotable luminaries as the late Northampton County Councilman Wayne Grube, former Northampton County Administration Director Jim Hickey and former state Rep. T.J. Rooney.

﻿ As it happens, I used to routinely list some of my favorite quotes from various politicians, particularly Allentown Councilwoman Emma Tropiano and Councilman Tony Frey.

I’m mentioning all this today because any collection of great quotes needs to include a classic from today’s Morning Call story about an Allentown firefighter who was fired last month because he played golf for three consecutive days he had called in sick on his job.

The story reported, "Richard G. Gawlick Jr. played a round at three different courses — including Allentown Municipal Golf Course — on Aug. 17, 18 and 19, all days he called in sick, according to records obtained by The Morning Call, including a termination letter sent to Gawlick." Gawlick played 20 rounds of golf last month in all, according to online records.

The same reporter, Jarrett Renshaw, did an investigative story with Jacob Fenton last year that showed how firefighters abused the city contract provision that lets them take four consecutive sick days without providing a doctor’s note. The benefit allowed firefighters, whose shifts run four days on followed by four days off, the equivalent of a 12-day leave.

According to their analysis of the period between January 2006 and July 2009, six out of every 10 times a firefighter called in sick, it was for exactly four days. Gawlick called out four consecutive days nine times during that 43-month period, Renshaw reports.

I should note that not all firefighters abuse this benefit. But enough have done it to make it a legitimate concern for the city, because it costs taxpayers a lot of money.

As a result of the story, the city began cracking down on abuse of the policy, in this case hiring a private investigator to see what Gawlick was doing while he was out sick.

That brings me to this great quote. Firefighters union President John Stribula said the public should not jump to conclusions. He wouldn’t provide details, but he said, "Playing golf was well within the guidelines of his diagnosis."

Awesome. I’d love to see that doctor’s prescription.

While I’m on the subject, I’ll share some of my nonprofane favorites from over the years:

Every so often, I'll get a phone call or an e-mail from someone who just has lost or is about to lose the family's dog or other companion animal.

They'll tell me they still remember the column I wrote about the death of our golden retriever, Penny. Some of them will ask for a copy. Others will tell me they saved it to help them when that inevitable time arrived for their family. I've even heard from people who still have it on their refrigerator.

Earlier this summer, I got an e-mail from a friend whose daughter I had coached in softball. He wrote, "Bill, it is getting about time to deal with the death a 15-year-old dog who has been a family member for that long. Your column on this issue is what inspired my wife, for the first time in her life, to write to a a columnist, and when you were coaching [his daughter], you mentioned that it was the most popular column you ever wrote, and was the most requested column you had ever written. I was wondering if you still had that available, and, if so, if you could shoot me a copy of it?

"Actually, you may want to consider reprinting that, since I am sure that a lot of people would appreciate seeing it, some again, and some for the first time."

I couldn't see rerunning it again in my column, unless we start using "Best Of" columns when I'm on vacation, but I told him I would try to get it on my blog sometime. Since my latest column (and Tuesday's) are about dog lovers, the timing seems right.

So here's the column I wrote back in April 2001, entitled, "Family lost treasured companion." If I ever do a compilation book of columns -- any publishers out there? -- this will be on the first page. I wrote it with tears streaming down my face, and as I post it today, the memories are hitting me the same way. What can I say? She was a great dog.

I’m posting my Movie Quotes Quiz tonight instead of Friday, because I won’t be arriving in the office until Friday afternoon, and I expect to be busy.

There are three themes here, involving two actors and one actress. At least one of three appears in all the movie represented with these quotes.

Let’s review the rules. Don’t look the quotes up on the Internet, unless you’re a lowdown snake. This is a test of your memory and movie knowledge, and you’ll spoil it if you cheat.

Also, don’t disenfranchise everyone else by answering a dozen of these at once. Pick a couple of them, preferably harder ones, and let everybody else get a chance. You’ll be welcomed back with open arms to clean up the mess later this weekend if some of them still are left unanswered.

Many of the items I write about in my Grammar Police columns are much more disturbing to former English teachers and other sticklers than they are to me.

How many people really care if you say “like” or “as if?” It’s worth reminding everyone of the rule, if only for formal writing, but to most of us, it’s hardly noticeable in everyday life.

What is tremendously visible, everywhere you go, is the misuse of apostrophes. It is abundantly clear that a sizeable portion of our population can’t distinguish between a possessive and a plural. (And yes, the headline was a joke, so don't jump all over me.)

I got a call last spring from a woman whose son was barred from what I recall was his middle school graduation.

This last-minute development was an embarrassment and an inconvenience. For one thing, the boy’s grandmother had come from out of town to see the graduation. For another, the mother ended up making a scene in the auditorium because the principal wouldn’t leave the stage to talk to her.

The boy’s offense: Wearing an “I love boobies” bracelet. They are created by Keep A Breast Foundation, a Carlsbad, Calif., nonprofit group that seeks to increase breast cancer awareness among young people.

At first glance, I was inclined to side with the family, at least somewhat. I’m a big supporter of breast cancer research and awareness, and the principal's reaction seemed extreme.

But it turns out that the principal had specifically told the boy the day before not to wear it to graduation, then saw him wearing it anyway, told him again, and the kid refused at first to take it off.

What’s more, it didn’t reflect any great commitment on the kid’s part to this cause. He just found it in a store and thought it was funny. So there was nothing noble about his defiance.

This isn’t really the optimum time to run a list of the 10 Best Ghost Movies. I should do it closer to Halloween.

What can I tell you? Including Jamie Lee Curtis as one of my Movie Quote themes last week got me going on scary movies, and ghosts are something I’ve never focused on with one of these lists before. So here it is.

Clearly, there have been a lot of ghost movies over the years, good and bad. I encourage you to add your own choices, even if it means denigrating some of mine. Not everyone has a taste for Don Knotts.

I was one of the chili judges at Wednesday night’s Allentown Fair, the first time I’ve signed up for that in a few years.

It’s safer to stick with chocolate cake, shoofly pie and other more reliably good foods. There’s no telling what a chili cook is going to throw in there, and the results sometimes are disastrous.

In my opinion, the one thing you shouldn’t do in a chili contest is try to impress everyone by making it scorchingly hot. As a judge, I can tell you that I don’t appreciate having my taste buds fried for the rest of the night. One of these entries required me to gulp down a couple of glasses of water, far beyond the normal intake for cleansing my palate. Spicy, fine. Ten-alarm fire, no.

I had a great time at the Allentown Fair Tuesday night, and I return tonight to help judge chili. My Thursday column will be about my adventures out there.

The experience always reminds me of other state fairs and county fairs I’ve attended over the years, including the Pig ‘n’ Ford Races at the Tillamook County Fair in Oregon. As you can see here, the competitors gather pigs and hold them as they race around in Model T Fords.

Interestingly enough, the motto for these races has a familiar ring here in IronPig country: Go Hog Wild!

My favorite depiction of one of these fairs came from the late great humorist Jean Shepherd, whom I’ve written about several times before. His story “County Fair!” originally published in Playboy, appeared in his wonderful book, “Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories.” It follows his family’s trip to their county fair in Indiana.

I quoted from this story a few years ago in connection with a news story about a man who was cited for flipping his middle finger at a state trooper. Shepherd's father — "The Old Man," in his parlance, as you know if you've seen "A Christmas Story," read any of his stories or heard him on the radio — has a hilarious encounter with a grouchy cop in the parking lot. Here's that blog post.

Today, I thought I would share the climactic scene in that story, where The Old Man, Ralphie and his little brother Randy climb aboard the Whirligig Rocket Whip after a full day of eating all manner of junk. When Ralphie's mother objects, the old man responds, "Aw, come on. It'll do the kids good. Blow the stink off 'em."

The descriptions are great. "There were brief flashes of dark sky, flashing lights, gaping throngs, my old man's rolling eyes, his straw hat sailing around the interior of the car." Their father's loose change and fountain pen all spin away into the night as the ride gains speed.